Marcel's ES-1TL

[Marcel]

Some photos in daylight and without glare.... up close its not as pretty a sight as one would have hoped... but if you stand back the imperfections seem to blend and then disappear....

[Marcel]

Another two close ups of the front...

[wokkaboy]

looks good Marcel. You did a god job of cleaning up the binding, the white and green contrast well

[Marcel]

Yeah, the binding does look good...It's amazing what an hour or so with a razor blade can achieve there Wokka...

[Marcel]

Spent a little time putting another layer on the build today before the 2yo grandson come to spend the weekend... Gave the build a little bit of buff with the microfibre cloth, and in the midday light the Green had an almost metallic look to it. More so on the edges than the front or back. Had me thinking 'Electric Green'....it's definitely growing on me...

Busy times ahead... Got a call from Adam this afternoon, and the email from Aussie-post.... my PBG RCM-4F is on its way...

[wazkelly]

Is that a custom build Mahogany Fretless on its way?

[Marcel]

Nah Waz,

Mahogany RC-4 with flame maple top. Was a custom order that Adam offered up as it wasn't exactly what a customer wanted.

It is in transit from PBG to me now so I can't comment too much. I'm loving the idea of a Mahogany solid body bass with Maple neck, the RC style is cool, the double bound flame maple top will make it look interesting, and the humbucking PU will give it a different sound to my basswood JB build. About the only down side is the dot inlays instead of the triangles of modern RC builds but RC's of the '60's had dots so not much lost there. Certainly looking forward to building it....

[wazkelly]

Hi Marcel, I do remember seeing that kit offered up for sale recently.

If you really want the triangular fret markers you could probably buy them as a sticker set on eBay but as you rightly pointed out the lesser Ric models have dots, predominately the mono versions.

Cheers, Waz

[Marcel]

Thanks for the suggestion Waz,

I'm not a fan of the fret stickers... Much rather the feel of the real fret board over some stuck on plastic coating, particularly if it is only to achieve some non-essential aesthetic. While not my preference, Dots on the RCM-4F build will be fine, and maybe open the door to trying for a '60's look as seen in old Beatles photos on someone else's RC-4 build thread.

Like all my builds...It will be what it is...

In the mean time I'll keep adding ultra thin Shellac coats to my ES-1TL build until I'm happy with the finish...

[Marcel]

Today has been a good day... Got the wife's car washed, fixed the WiFi on her new phone, and then spent the rest of the day working on the ES-1TL.

The coat of Shellac had dried and hardened enough, and there is enough gloss to look like a reasonably old finish... and the Wabi sabi component was definitely feeling strong, so I decided it was time to take the build as far as I could get before the sun fell below the horizon...

I got some 2 pin connectors from Jaycar for the PU's. Fitted and soldered them to the PU tails and to the harness. All was good. As I was fitting the PU's to the body I thought it would be a good idea to fit the bridge posts so that I could use some 0.5mm copper wire as pretend strings and get the alignment of the PU's just perfect. Tapped in the bridge posts easy peasy... mounted the PU's and the pick guard no problem, Gee whiz, this is going so easy, I think I'll put the harness in.... Damn, where is the earth wire to the bridge??? Oooops!!

The next hour was spent removing one of the bridge posts so that I could fit the earth wire. Tried the screw in the hole method but gave that up when I started to hear loud 'creek' and 'CRAACKKK!' noises from within the body... must be another way!.. I ended up getting a steel bar with a hole in it to hold the screw section and using that leveraged against a wood block in the PU hole to pull the post sheath out. Think of a claw-hammer pulling nails sort of thing, but with the handle I was pulling on way past the end of the claw..

Once the earth wire was in I soldered it to the harness. connected the PU's, and dropped the whole lot into the diamond hole. I used the PVC tube method to get the 6mm socket into place, and the hook end of an engineers scribe to get all the pots into the right spots. Attached the nuts and washers, tightened them up... job done in 20 mins....

Fitted the Bigsby style trem and the kit supplied strings.... and tuned it up...

The build so far..
YouBeaut Green/Blue stain & Hard Shellac seal/finish
Kluson vintage tuners
Tonerider Classic AC2N and AC2B PU's
Chinese Bigsby copy
Ebay Roller bridge

I got a bone nut for the build which I'll probably fit when I give it a fret job. As is though the original nut works fine with the bigsby, and only buzz discovered so far is the 2nd fret on the A string.... I might just leave it for a few months to settle in and then make decisions on further work....

It does sound acoustically sweet, and it has a lovely ring to it.... and through my 10W VOX practice amp it has nice tone that is clear yet not particularly bright.